Civil Justice Survey of Trials on Appeal, 2005 (ICPSR 32501)

The Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) Civil Justice Survey
of Trials on Appeal (CJSTA) was based on 26,950 general
civil (i.e., tort, contract, and real property) cases that were
disposed by bench or jury trial in 156 counties participating
in the 2005 Civil Justice Survey of State Courts (ICPSR 23862).
Subsequently, 3,970 of those cases were appealed to 84
appellate courts in 35 states.
This data collection examines civil bench and jury trials
concluded in state trial courts in 2005 that... (more info)

The Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) Civil Justice Survey
of Trials on Appeal (CJSTA) was based on 26,950 general
civil (i.e., tort, contract, and real property) cases that were
disposed by bench or jury trial in 156 counties participating
in the 2005 Civil Justice Survey of State Courts (ICPSR 23862).
Subsequently, 3,970 of those cases were appealed to 84
appellate courts in 35 states.
This data collection examines civil bench and jury trials
concluded in state trial courts in 2005 that were appealed
to an intermediate appellate court or court of last resort.
It is the first report based on data collected in the Bureau
of Justice Statistics' (BJS) Civil Justice Survey of Trials on
Appeal (CJSTA). The CJSTA included information from
court records on civil trials concluded in 2005 and tracked
the subsequent appeals from 2005 through March 2010.
Information collected included the types of civil cases
appealed, appeals dismissed or withdrawn before being
decided on the merits, and appeals resulting in the trial
court decision being reversed or affirmed. The time from the
filing of an appeal to final appellate court disposition was
also measured.

Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Study Description

Citation

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Civil Justice Survey of Trials on Appeal, 2005. ICPSR32501-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2012-01-10. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR32501.v1

Universe:
Tort, contract, and real property trials disposed in a national sample of counties in 2005 that were subsequently appealed to an intermediate appellate court or court of last resort.

Data Types:
event/transaction data

Methodology

Study Design:
The CJSTA tracked every general civil case concluded by bench or jury trial in 2005 in the 156 surveyed counties that were subsequently appealed to an intermediate appellate court or court of last resort. Of the 8,872 general civil cases concluded, plaintiffs and defendants filed 1,439 appeals in 61 intermediate appellate courts and 77 appeals in 23 courts of last resort for a total of 1,516 appeals.

Sample:
inap.

Time Method:
Cross-sectional

Weight:
The data contains several analysis weights. BWGT0 is the weight used to produce national level estimates of tort, contract, and real property trials concluded in 2005 that were subsequently appealed to an intermediate appellate court or court of last resort. Replicate weights: The data set contains 132 replicate weight variables (BWGT1 to BWGT132) appropriate for calculating sampling errors and confidence intervals using WESTVAR PC. The replicate weights were created using the jackknife method and the user must specify the JKn variance estimation procedure when using WESTVAR PC.

Data Source:

standard coding forms completed by court staff

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: